Writers block and how to deal with it Link to heading
It’s rough analogue is brain constipation. It causes you to have either too many or too few thoughts; the one that occurred to me, resulted in around 15 articles half-started, going in a direction which made me rather uncomfortable publishing. Consequently, despite having written a significant amount, I’ve not published much.
So how do you deal with this?
Simply put, you write something short, make sure that it is as uncontroversial as possible, and get it out the door. Maybe not because it’s a good thing to publish, but because it is something that can be published without much ado; something that could be written in a couple of minutes, and pushed out the door, to get the nagging feeling of: “I need to publish something and I haven’t done this in a while” off of your chest.
If only it were something we could do in science (wink! wink!).
The main problem comes afterwards, when you make a commitment to publish at least once a week. How do you deal with that? How do you make sure that you have something to write about?
Sadly, the problem comes down to are you interesting enough at your least interesting? It’s tough to answer that question without feeling awkward. It’s also a loaded question because of its direct connection to self-esteem and the fact that almost no-one wants to feel as if they’re “not good enough”, and at the same time deal with the real world, where that is a real possibility.
How to deal with writer’s block when you feel that you’re inadequate Link to heading
This is a bigger problem than you might assume at first: has the same kind of solution of just write more. I’m afraid this is not how real life works.
The main problem isn’t that you have too many ideas, but it is that you either have too few of them to begin with, or too few of a specific quality standard so that you can publish them. Note that this is different from the ideas being adequate to start with, but becoming increasingly controversial; you can always defend yourself with “oh I’m just a brave soul, not afraid of being ostracised for truth”; I’m referring to the situation in which you are not at all convinced that the text that you have written would be useful to anyone unless the IQ scores drop by a good 30 points.
While it’d be tempting to say that I have not had this form of writer’s block, the lie remains a lie.
So what does one do in this situation?
One of three things. Firstly, we adapt the advice given in the previous, much simpler section: we write on things that are in our opinion inconsequential. But for the time being, we shield ourselves from criticism, by, for example, disabling comments, and only allowing people to discuss the material in direct conversation.
What this allows you to do, is to build confidence, that you might be able to produce good works eventually, and while the works that you publish right now are not in any way adequate to your standards, it gives you a clear idea of what other people’s standards are. Of course, the intention here is to eventually take the training wheels off, and so you shouldn’t get too accustomed to lack of criticism, which leads me to the second remedy.
Point two is that you should try and align what you consider to be good material, with what others consider to be good material. And that you can accomplish by stealing, _research. Yes, I said it.
Copying other people’s work when you’re learning is essentially how we learn. Many of the greatest musicians have credited Johann Sebastian Bach as a great inspiration, which usually means that they have had to play Bach in some capacity; beg borrow or mainly steal some of his ideas and adapt them to the modern day. If it works for them, it will work for you, at least temporarily.
The only thing to look out for is the unfortunate consequence of systemic borrowing, what you do is stale and not in any way original. How is this an issue, you might ask? Well, at the end of the day, what you have created is not original work, and you of all people know it. In a world where there is no art, but content, this sort of systemic plagiarism operates under different rules than those of the ancient times, and you cannot keep stealing, hoping to fade into obscurity. If people wanted to listen to “Under pressure”, they can; so you adding another 1/8 note and producing an objectively worse product is… well… considered poor taste, at least in the age of content, and digital preservation.
But that doesn’t mean that old methods, particularly ones that were used by those that have outgrown borrowing, also known as those that have pushed the envelope of art, have utilised.
Of course, I’m referring to the third method and one that requires a great deal of mental fortitude. Very specifically, it is a method of deconstructing ones own works, to ascertain what, if anything is good or interesting; what if anything requires adjustment; what if anything is so bad that it kills the piece as a whole.
The reason why I say that it requires a great deal of mental fortitude, is because of one peculiarity that I found. From the objective point of view, lying to yourself is the hardest thing in the world, because you of all people have access to the exact same information as the liar: you are the liar after all. At the same time, it is extremely tempting to lie to yourself about the quality of something, and your brain will do nothing to protect you from a stream of thought that will protect your works from criticism; nay enhance them to the highest pedestal.
The main problem, as you can tell, is that this is an ordinary process, that takes place almost for everything that you do. And if you are reading this far into the present work, you probably err on the side of being too harsh on yourself, and not nearly harsh enough at the same time. By that I mean that you rarely if ever finish reading the feedback on any work that you produce, exaggerate the negatives, and ruminate on the most emotionally charged aspects of it. This renders any form of constructive criticism completely incapable of helping you, because instead of having the intended effect of a surgical adjustment, it is liable to make you quit altogether.
I’m afraid I’ve been there, and I’m also unfortunately in the position to say that “quit altogether” is a rational, and sometimes justified decision. This is the main reason why I have reconsidered an academic career, and why I have not pursued “Reinforcement Learning as a Testing Methodology” further. The dose makes the poison, however, and one must be able to distinguish constructive, and emotionally charged critique. The reasons why I had reconsidered testing programs with fancy models had almost nothing to do with the actual wording of the criticism; in all fairness, I could take the phrase “God among men” out of context, and ignore the rest of the critique, the self-reflection and an attempt at being objective about the needs of most projects was a consequence of introspection spurred by the criticism, not of the criticism.
It is important to strike a balance, the dose makes the poison. Some people criticise regardless of merit, some people prefer to remain silent about objective deficiencies; the best one can do is attempt to be objective with the information that they are given. As such I have the following recommendation.
Try to finish reading the feedback and suppress your emotional response.
Try to bin the feedback according to the following criteria: objectively justified criticism (i.e. something was imprecise, or not clear), enhanced criticism (something which would not ordinarily be a problem, but is considered one in this case), and irrelevant criticism (the aforementioned “God among men”).
Having binned the criticism, look at the work from the perspective of a critic, and try to find your own points. Bin them too! You might be surprised as to how much of it will fall outside the objectively justifiable realm.
Having done all of that, fix some of it. I recommend making a deliberate effort of either finding a reason not to implement the nitpicks, or reconsider their positioning.
At the end of the day, writer’s block is a problem, with an ever-present psychological component. Seeking out help and adopting external advice is not a sign of weakness.